Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/63

* ITALY. 47 ITALY. (q.v.) and Charles the Great conquered the Lom- bards, and finally in 774 Desiderius, the last King of the Lombards, was sent to die in a monastery, and Charles the Great had himself crowned with the Iron Cro^vn (q.v.). This proved to be little more than a change of rulers, for, as generally in the Jliddle Ages, the laws of the victors were not imposed upon the conquered. Out of gratitude for the royal title which the Pope had bestowed on him after "the deposition of the last of the Merovin- gian kings. Pepin granted to the Holy See the possession of a strip of territoiy in Central Italy, comprising the Exarchate of Ravenna, the ilarch of Ancona, and the Romagna, the former two con- quered from the Lombards. This donation of Pepin (q.v.), later confirmed by the donation of Charles the Great, was momentous for the his- tory of Italy in that it marked the beginning of the" temporal rule of the popes, and introduced into Italy one of the most piowerful factors of national ' activity. On Christmas Day. 800, Charles the Great was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III., and for centuries the history of Italy turned upon the conflict and interrelation between the two great poers which disputed with each other the primacy in mediieval life, the Empire and the Papacy. 'By the Treaty of Verdun (843), in which the Frankish realm was partitioned be- tween the grandsons of Charles the Great. Italy was included in the share given to Lothair. During the years of confusion that followed, the Saracens overran Southern Italy, and even threatened Rome. The history of Italy for many years is nothing but the rise of one petty king after another, many of them aspiring to the Imperial title. Among these may be mentioned Guido of Spoleto. Berengar of Friuli. and Hugo of Provence. With them the Papacy intrigued and plotted, for the successor of Peter was now the puppet of different factions in Rome. The period of anarchy ended in 002. when Otho the Great (q.v.). after obtaining possession of Northern Italy and the Lombard crown, was crowned Emperor. This marked the establish- ment of the 'Holy Roman Empire of the Ger- man Nation' (see Holt Roii.^x Empibe), and until the end of the iliddle Ages the Emperor theoretically ruled over Italy, though the Impe- rial authority was completely set aside by the beginning of the fourteenth century. For a long time the emperors came to Rome to be crowned by the Pope, and until that had been done their title was not considered to be complete. 5Iean- while the south of Italy was still in the posses- sion of the Byzantines, whom the Germans were imable to oust, until finally in the eleventh cen- tury they were driven out by the Xonnarts. who in 1127 united their conquests in Italy with Sici- ly, which they had wrested from the Saracens. (See S.R.cExs: Xoriiaxr: Guisc^rd. Robert.) In the time of the Emperor Henry IV. ( 1036- llOfi) the Papacy had become strong and power- ful again, and the great investiture struggle broke out. the Papacy finding an indomitable champion in Gregory VII. See Investiture. Simultaneously with the increasing power of the popes a great barrier to the continued rule of the Germans was being erected in the rising city States. In Italy the feudal system had never attained the high development so charac- teristic of France and Germany, which was due, to a great extent, to the survival of Roman tra- ditions and the many cities in Italy, for feudal- ism was chiefly rural, not urban. The cities of Lombardy defied the power of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, of the House of Hohen- staufen, who waged bloody wars with them to no purpose. In 1167 the Lombard League (q.v.) was formed. In 1176 Frederick was vanquished at Legnano, and in 1183, in the Peace of Con- stance, the cities secured the recognition of their liberties. A last attempt to crush both the Papacy and its allies was made by Frederick II., the last great ruler of the House of Ho- henstaufen (1215-50), but, though he controlled Naples and Sicily, as well as the Empire, even his great ability was unable to change the state of affairs. Italy itself was rent by the struggles between the opponents and the partisans of Impe- rial rule, known respectively as Guelphs and Ghibellines (q.v.), names which continued to be the designation of fiercely contending parties long after the emperors had lost their hold on the country. In the second half of the thirteenth century a new foreign power came to play an important rule in Italian affairs. Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France, summoned by the Pope to aid him against the Hohenstaufen, undertook the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples (the Two Sicilies), and overthrew Man- fred, the son of Frederick II.. in 1266. Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, was defeated in an attempt to recover the Kingdom in 1268 and put to death. But in 1282 (see Siciliax Vespers) Sicily rose against the French and placed itself under the power of Aragon. In the North, the cities, having secured inde- pendence from the central authority, entered into contests with the nobles, who claimed authority over them. Gradually the various nobles were defeated, compelled to abandon their castles in the country, and to live in the cities. By com- merce the cities had grown verj' wealthy, and had established oligarchical governments, which were tending to become democratic. Venice by her share in the fourth Crusade had secured extensive possessions in the Ea.st. (See Byz.x- tixe Empire: Daxdolo.) Pisa. Genoa. Milan and Florence had acquired great power. In 1278 the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg recognized the Papal States, which included Emilia. Romagna, the March of Ancona. the Patrimony of Saint Peter, and the Campagna of Rome. In 1284-90 tlje naval power of Pisa was destroyed by Genoa. Before this Genoa had engaged in a fierce strug- gle for ascendency with her rival, Venice, whicn finally ended in favor of Venice toward the close of the next century. In every city of North- ern and Central Italy the population was di- vided into Guelphs and Ghibellines. In a gen- eral way the former represented the progres- sive party; the latter, the conservative. In the cities civil strife was incessant, and the triumph of either party frequently resulted in the expulsion of the hostile faction from the city. Often the exiles attempted to regain power with the aid of other cities, and city warred against city, producing throughout the later iliddle Ages a shifting succession of alliances, conquestsi^ and temporary truces. This condition of affairs was inimical to commerce and manu- facturing, which were the chief interests of the citizens in the north. In the cities the Podestil (q.v.). who had been created as an arbitrator between the different parties, had proved ineffi-